


devour a starless night

by toomoon (jjjat3am)



Category: ONEUS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Demons, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, M/M, Underage Drinking, don't be too excited this is soft really, yes those three tags can coexist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28266633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/toomoon
Summary: “So, what?” Hwanwoong snorts, looks up at Dongju. From his vantage point, he can only mostly see up his nostrils.  “You’re telling me you’re the root of all evil or something?”“No, that’s my brother,” Dongju says calmly, and Hwanwoong thinks about Dongmyeong and his patterned waistcoats and sunny smiles, and frowns.or,Dongju is a demon, but he's still a member of Oneus
Relationships: Son Dongju | Xion/Yeo Hwanwoong
Comments: 18
Kudos: 85





	devour a starless night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartseekers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartseekers/gifts).



> Dear Mac!! I hope you like this story and that it distracts you at least a little bit from what's going on right now. I'm really glad we're friends and I hope you can celebrate your holidays well.
> 
> Biggest thanks to Stickie, who came in to save the actual horror scenes. This fic wouldn't be what it is without your advice and I'm grateful.
> 
> This was written for the WeMoon Secret Santa exchange. If you can, please take a look at the rest of the [posted fic](https://twitter.com/WMSecretSanta/status/1339788580776890368). I hope you enjoy this and please, mind the tags,

“Tell me a secret you’ve never told anyone else,” Dongju says into the air between them. Hwanwoong blinks his sleepy eyes open, trying to gather his thoughts into some semblance of order. It’s their first day in America and he’s fighting a losing fight against jetlag. 

He’s sharing a hotel room with Dongju. The first thing they did was push their beds together, creating a nest of excess pillows and blankets. They’re supposed to leave the blinds open, allow for the afternoon sunshine to ease them into their new surroundings but there’s darkness enough in their cocoon of blankets, and they’ve had to resort to trailing off questions and half-thought-out replies to keep awake.

Dongju is sitting up against the headboard, Hwanwoong’s head in his lap. There are lines of exhaustion drawn in the corners of his mouth. The whites of his eyes are threaded through with red and his long eyelashes blink too rapidly, sweeping arcs across his pale cheeks. With his unstyled hair spilling across an old white T-shirt and the bitten red of his mouth, he manages to look somewhat like a fairytale princess. Hwanwoong thinks he should be used to it by now, but he isn’t. 

“A secret?” he repeats, almost to himself. Dongju makes an affirmative noise. His fingers are a repetitive caress through Hwanwoong’s hair, fizzling sparkles of pleasure jolting across his scalp. Everything feels sleepy and unreal, from the roar of traffic outside the window to the way his nails catch on the small tangles in Hwanwoong’s hair. It feels isolated. 

It feels like they’re the only two people in the world.

“A secret,” Hwanwoong tries again, and his mouth has wrapped around the word often enough that it doesn’t feel real anymore. “I had a crush on a boy when I was in high school.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he remembers they’re a mistake. The drowsiness falls away as his limbs tense in a flight response. He swallows around a too-dry mouth and waits for judgment.

Dongju’s fingers in his hair don’t slow in their caress. At first Hwanwoong wonders if he even heard, with how little shows in his expression. Dongju’s fingers circle his temple and he feels some of the tension leave his body.

“That’s cute,” Dongju says in the sudden silence between them, and he sounds unbothered. Slowly, Hwanwoong feels his heartbeat settle, allowing himself to melt the rest of the way into the pillow of Dongju’s legs.

“Now you have to tell me one,” Hwanwoong tells him, grasping for the feeling of safety of five minutes before. From his vantage point, he can see just a sliver of Dongju’s expression, feeling slightly mollified when his mouth stretches into a small smile.

“A secret,” Dongju says thoughtfully. “Well, I’m a demon.”

Hwanwoong blinks, limbs still shaking with leftover adrenaline. He’s exhausted and confused, and he must have misheard. “What?”

“You heard me correctly,” Dongju says, smiling strangely, almost knowingly. Like he knows what Hwanwoong is thinking but that would be ridiculous.

“So, what?” Hwanwoong snorts, looks up at Dongju. From his vantage point, he can only mostly see up his nostrils. That doesn’t seem very demon-like. “You’re telling me you’re the root of all evil or something?”

“No, that’s my brother,” Dongju says calmly, and Hwanwoong thinks about Dongmyeong and his patterned waistcoats and sunny smiles, and frowns. Dongju is definitely fucking with him and he can’t help but feel a little hurt. 

Absently, he notes that the distant sound of traffic has grown louder, buzzing like hornets in his ears. 

“I find that even harder to believe,” he says. Dongju shrugs, smiling slightly, his fingers rubbing circles into Hwanwoong’s scalp. “Both of you are demons?”

“Yup,” Dongju says and the word seems strangely stretched out, dripping into Hwanwoong’s ears slowly like molasses. He feels drunk from lack of sleep and the time difference, and it’s getting hard to think in sentences. American sunlight seems to shine too-bright, spilling through the gaps in the curtains to paint shadows across Dongju’s face - casting his eye sockets in darkness that suddenly seems too deep, too encompassing. 

Dongju smiles wider. It looks like it has too many teeth. Hwanwoong starts to count them but can’t keep track of the number.

“We’re going to talk about this in the morning,” he mumbles, as Dongju’s fingers stroke gently through his hair.

“No, we won’t,” he thinks he hears Dongju say but he’s already asleep.

  
  


*

  
  


The day after their arrival feels weird. Hwanwoong sleeps for hours but he doesn’t feel rested, and he’s left with the feeling that he’s drifted through unsettling dreams. He doesn’t feel like his jetlag has abated any and his napping earns him a scolding from the manager. Dongju only smiles beatifically in the background and refuses to take on any responsibility for not waking Hwanwoong up. He, apparently, feels fine.

Speaking of Dongju, something about him makes Hwanwoong feel strange. He remembers falling asleep with his head on Dongju’s lap, the phantom glide of his fingers through his hair but none of the content of their conversation, and it’s a little unsettling. He feels like he’s revealed too much, his veins occasionally filling with misplaced sparks of adrenaline that he doesn’t know what to do with. 

Dongju isn’t actually treating him any differently but being in his presence makes Hwanwoong feel jumpy, and he knows the others are noticing, though they’re probably chalking it up to his nervousness about being in a foreign country, and performing in front of crowds. Youngjo grasps his hand in quiet moments, guides Hwanwoong’s head onto his shoulder so he can rest. Geonhak watches, quietly worried, getting up to tuck his jacket around them when he thinks they’ve gone to sleep. Keonhee brings him food, pressing the snacks insistently against Hwanwoong’s mouth until he takes another bite. 

Seoho isn’t there and Hwanwoong can’t help but miss him - his laugh, his reassuring presence, the familiarity of the one person who’s known him the longest. Seoho would have been a refuge from the others’ increasingly overbearing expressions of concern and the gap of his absence feels like an open wound.

Dongju doesn’t try to approach him and Hwanwoong can’t help but feel grateful for it. And awful too, because he loves Dongju, he loves being with him and playing with him, but the feeling of wrongness persists, a gnawing coldness in the pit of his stomach, every time he catches Dongju looking, or laughing, or moving.

Sometimes he catches sight of Dongju from the corner of his eye, and it almost feels like he’s figured it out like he’s grasping at the edge of a memory, but the moment passes and the thought is gone, like walking into a room looking for something and then forgetting entirely what it was.

Setting up for their stage, getting ready for their fansign, and trying to adjust to being surrounded by an unfamiliar language are welcome distractions from that.

Dongju sits next to him at the table, their elbows occasionally brushing. He’s unusually warm, almost enough that it makes Hwanwoong wonder if he has a fever, but Dongju seems fine. 

Then again, Dongju always runs warm. If they sleep on each other, Dongju nestles into his side like a human space heater, his hand a comforting weight over Hwanwoong's, the pads of his fingers like a brand over the exposed skin of his waist.

Hwanwoong wrenches himself out of the memory, flushing at Dongju's questioning look, rushing to smile brightly at the fan sitting down in front of him. He's been staring, he realizes, at the curl of Dongju's hair around the multiple Mickey Mouse sunglasses on his head, at the glint of his clip-on earring. Hwanwoong’s hand is resting on his own stomach, right where it usually lands when he falls asleep and he wrenches it away to grab a pen. 

His smile becomes more natural as the fan stumbles over quiet compliments that he can barely decipher. He tries not to look at Dongju for the rest of the day. Fails, more than a couple of times.

  
  


*

  
  


Hwanwoong shares a room with Dongju in another city. It's common for them to share, the youngest left to their own devices. He's thought about asking for a switch but is unable to articulate his reasons even to himself.

Dongju doesn’t ask him to push their beds together anymore. He even lets him take the first shower. Outside the hotel room window, the streets spin out in bright patterns of life. Hwanwoong stares at them until his eyesight turns blurry, falling into an uneasy sleep before Dongju returns to his bed.

Hwanwoong wakes up. There’s sweat sticking his T-shirt to his body and he shivers in the sudden cold breeze. The hotel window is wide open. The peaceful night sky has turned a sickly orange, painted intermittently with smog grey. 

Dongju is sitting at the window, a takeout container open in front of him. There’s a chunk of meat in his hands, raw and vivid, and he’s ripping it into pieces with his fingers and bringing them up to his red-stained mouth, face contorted into an expression of bliss. Hwanwoong watches in horror as the meat pulses in Dongju’s palm, and he realizes it’s a heart, beating weakly, growing smaller with every bite. 

He takes a deep panicked breath and smoke fills his nose. There’s an incessant buzzing in his ears. It takes him a moment to realize that it’s screaming. A hundred people, crying, dying, their angry howls filling his ears.

Piece after piece of the meat disappears into Dongju’s mouth, behind a row of deceptively human teeth with loud chewing noises that make Hwanwoong feel sick. There’s blood running down Dongju’s hands in rivets, straining his white T-shirt, painting his hands, his chin. As if sensing his gaze, Dongju’s eyelashes flutter and his eyes open, and Hwanwoong can’t move, can’t even scream -

Hwanwoong wakes up. There’s sweat sticking his T-shirt to his body and he swallows down the scream building up in his throat. Dongju is sitting next to him on the bed, reading something on his phone, profile silhouetted by the warm lamplight. Hwanwoong must make a sound because he looks directly at him. His expression is unreadable, eyes sunken in shadows.

Hwanwoong has to cough twice before he can speak. His throat feels raw. “I had a nightmare,” he tells Dongju, “that you were eating my heart.”

“That’s so silly, hyung,” Dongju says lightly but he puts his phone aside to look at Hwanwoong fully. “You know I can barely handle my steak medium-rare.”

Dongju smiles slightly, close-lipped. He reaches over, moving so slowly, to press his palm over Hwanwoong’s chest. Heat spreads out like a blanket from where his hand touches and Hwanwoong sighs softly, all thoughts of the nightmare fleeing his mind. The touch is familiar and he feels drowsy, and Dongju’s eyes have gone dark. It’s a lot like how some of his more pleasant dreams start.

Dongju leans over, and Hwanwoong realizes it’s not just a trick of the light - Dongju’s eyes are all pupils, a liquid dark that devours the light. His hands are dyed red with dried blood, pieces flaking off like rust-colored glitter.

Dongju must read something on his face because he laughs, his eyes flickering down to Hwanwoong’s chest and when Hwanwoong follows his gaze, he realizes what’s soaking through his pajamas isn’t sweat - it’s blood. The hand on his skin burns hot because his body is freezing, his chest is empty, struck by the sudden realization that where he should feel his heart beating, there is nothing, and he can't move, he can't even scream -"

Hwanwoong wakes up. There’s sweat sticking his T-shirt to his body and he swallows down the scream building up in his throat. Looking down, he realizes there are no red spots on his pajamas and he breathes out a sigh of relief. There is a cool breeze and incessant drumming in his ears that resolves itself into a voice.

The hotel window is cracked open and Dongju sits in front of it, facing a phone. He lifts up a huge hamburger and shows it to the camera.

“ToMoon!” he says, smiling cutely. “This barely fits in my hands, there’s no way it’ll fit in my mouth.”

His eyes flicker to the side, where Hwanwoong is sitting, and his smile widens. “Ah, Hwanwoong hyung is awake, ToMoon, but I can’t show him to you, because he’s all gross looking. He’ll post a selca for you later, once he’s all prettied up.”

He reads some of the comments and laughs, brandishing the hamburger, and Hwanwoong draws the sheets tighter around himself, trying to catch his breath as his jittery body settles into reality.

  
  


*

  
  


Strange dreams mean Hwanwoong sleeps even less, waking up in the middle of the night, sweat-soaked and freezing cold, and he swears he feels Dongju watching, but when he looks over, he’s curled up asleep. 

He starts forgetting things when he walks into rooms, has to go through the motions to remember what he came for. Bottles of water appear at his elbow when he’s thirsty when no one from the staff is around. He watches Dongju in the reflection of the mirror when he’s getting his makeup done and swears he can see darkness peeking through from under his eyelashes. Someone smiles at him and Hwanwoong finds himself counting their teeth.

Hwanwoong takes to napping between sound-checks, and fan signs, and sitting up in the makeup chair. He feels tired right down to his bones, exhaustion dogging his steps until he can’t even muster up the energy to feel guilty for the worried glances he’s receiving. Maybe that’s what dulls his reflexes. Maybe it’s just bad luck.

The venue they’re playing at is in a tall old building with an open staircase, and a large number of stairs. They walk all the way up because Geonhak insists he’s not getting enough exercise, and the view at the top is a little dizzying but maybe that’s the lack of oxygen. They pause at the top while they wait for the elevators to take them back down, Keonhee excitedly exclaiming over their poster hanging at the entrance, the already gathering crowd beyond. Hwanwoong, exhausted, leans on the railing, his eyes slipping shut for a moment of relief.

There’s a crack underneath his hands and his body pitches forward. When he opens his eyes, he’s falling, the lights on the ceiling dancing in front of his vision, his member’s horrified faces in the distance, and he only has a moment to register the feeling of weightlessness, to realize that he should be afraid. 

And then he hits the floor, and there’s a sound like a twig snapping. He briefly registers the pain in his neck, the feeling of his ribs shattering in his chest, puncturing through the tissue of his lungs and he tries to take a breath. Fails. And then there’s nothing. The absence of light and color and heartbeat. And when he opens his eyes, he’s standing on top of the staircase, in front of an intact railing, and Dongju is holding his hand hard enough to bruise, his face pale and terrible, eyes gone entirely black.

Hwanwoong remembers. His breath leaves his lungs in a shocked gasp, and he pushes forward into Dongju’s arms, where it’s warm and frightening. Dongju holds on to him so tightly it’s painful. 

The rest of the members don’t seem to notice, Keonhee having moved to bicker with Youngjo as Geonhak tries and fails to mediate. They don’t even look in their direction, and neither does anyone from the staff.

Hwanwoong stares at Dongju’s eyes and remembers them in a dim hotel room, his words ringing with a terrible truth. 

“What did you do?” Hwanwoong whispers against the too-warm skin of Dongju’s neck, inhales the smell of citrus and the undertone of smoke he’s never realized was there.

“Something I don’t regret,” Dongju says calmly, though his hollow-boned body shaking as his fingers dig into Hwanwoong’s back, anchoring as Hwanwoong tries to catch his breath, his body settling back into being alive.

  
  


*

  
  


The bathroom door is open halfway and Hwanwoong watches Dongju remove his makeup in the hotel mirror. He’s methodical about it - a swipe of the make-up wipe across his left eyelid, and then across his right, carefully wiping away the smeared eyeliner from the corners. And then comes the foundation and blush, tinting the wipes a gross brownish color as more of Dongju’s natural skin is revealed. He’s got a pimple on his chin. There are dark circles under his eyes, leftovers from cross-Pacific travel. 

“Can’t you just make your skin flawless?” Hwanwoong says. Dongju looks up and their eyes meet in the mirror. Dongju’s expression is flat and unreadable.

“That’s why I’m putting my facemask and serum on,” Dongju says and Hwanwoong frowns. Now, after the performance, in the hotel room, semi-familiar in the way all hotel rooms are to him at this point, he finds that all the confusion and leftover terror is steadily brewing into anger. 

“No, but can’t you just,” Hwanwoong waves his hand in the air between them, “make your pimples disappear?”

Their gazes are still holding in the mirror. Dongju suddenly smiles, a barely-there twitch of lips. The next moment, Hwanwoong is looking at an almost stranger, skin even and smooth, poreless, like their magazine photoshoots, less human, more porcelain doll. He blinks and it’s Dongju, pimple and laugh lines, and he’s shaking out a face mask to press it onto his skin.

“That’s so creepy,” Hwanwoong breathes out, fascinated despite himself. 

“So we’re talking about it now?” Dongju says, washing his hands in the sink. Hwanwoong feels a surge of anger at his blase attitude.

“We could have talked about it ages ago if you hadn’t erased my memories of it!” Hwanwoong hisses. Dongju sighs quietly like Hwanwoong is the one being unreasonable. Hwanwoong clenches his fists under the blankets.

Dongju closes the bathroom door behind him with a quiet thump, sitting on the opposite bed, hands in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he says steadily.

“You’re not,” Hwanwoong says sharply. “You’re just sorry it didn’t work.”

“Mostly I’m sorry you sent yourself hurtling over the railing,” Dongju says, equally sharply. Hwanwoong recoils and goes quiet. Neither of them are very good at confrontation. They sit silently for a few minutes.

“Did you give me the nightmares?” Hwanwoong asks quietly. Something in Dongju’s face softens.

“No,” he says. Hwanwoong nods to himself, relaxing slightly into the blankets. It’s late. “But they might have been a bleed-through, from the memory thing.”

Hwanwoong swallows dryly, some of his sleepiness dispersing. “Okay,” he says, even though it isn’t. “Are you going to do it again? The…memory thing?”

“I don’t think it’d work anymore,” Dongju says and he sounds regretful, and Hwanwoong feels a surge of anger so strong it leaves him cold and shaking.

“I see, so that’s how it is,” he says, icy. The hotel walls are thin and he knows if he starts yelling, Youngjo will definitely come running from next door, and their eldest hyung has been looking a bit tired recently. Hwanwoong doesn’t want to interrupt his sleep.

Dongju’s eyes widen. “Ah, hyung, that’s not what I meant-” he starts. He reaches out, across the distance between the beds, and Hwanwoong flinches away instinctively, pressing himself against the headboard, heart beating in his chest from a mix of anger and adrenaline.

“It’s not?” Hwanwoong hisses, doing his best to keep his voice even. “So you didn’t prefer it when I was ignorant and scared, wondering what the fuck was happening to me? I thought I was going insane!”

Hwanwoong takes a deep breath, glaring at Dongju, who seems to shrink further in on himself. 

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Dongju says quietly.

Like this, hunched over on the edge of the hotel bed, hands in his lap, elbows tucked close to make himself smaller, he doesn’t look anything like what he is. Nothing like the kid who stands on stage in front of thousands and smiles. Nothing like a fiery beast of hell, or wherever he’s supposed to be from. Dongju just looks like a kid out of his depth. The expression on his face is the same as it was in a hundred early morning training rooms, apologizing for not being good in the face of their looming debut date. 

It’s the kind of expression that makes Hwanwoong want to forgive anything, just to wipe it off his face forever. Instead, he bites his tongue, and pulls his blankets closer, lying down, facing away from Dongju.

There’s a couple of minutes of quiet before Dongju seems to collect himself and start moving. Hwanwoong doesn’t see him but he knows his routine by heart, the clatter of his phone on the nightstand as he checks his alarm, the way his body sounds settling among crisp hotel sheets. He almost exhales a breath of relief as the lamp clicks off, sinking the details of the room into darkness. Hwanwoong can finally close his eyes, sinking into an uneasy sleep.

  
  


*

  
  


Hwanwoong wakes up with a gasp from dreams of falling, from his bones snapping and slicing through the tender meat of his body. His neck aches, and his face feels wet, and he can’t seem to catch his breath, crying out soundlessly.

The room is bathed in the muted morning light and Hwanwoong tries to find something familiar to focus on among the unfamiliar silhouettes in the room. 

“Hyung, it was just a dream,” Dongju’s voice, gentle, soothing, “you’re alright, it was just a dream.”

It feels like it takes an inhuman amount of effort to turn his head in the direction of Dongju’s voice. He’s closer than Hwanwoong would have expected, out of his bed, and kneeling next to Hwanwoong’s. In the first vestiges of dawn creeping through the curtains, his face is highlighted in blue, all strange angles and jagged edges. Hwanwoong doesn’t think about it, he just moves, adrenaline giving him a burst of energy as he throws himself at him with all his strength.

Dongju catches him, his wiry arms around Hwanwoong’s torso and holding tight. The crook of his neck smells like sweat and his citrusy body lotion, familiar. He’s sleep-warm, his body chasing away the chill in Hwanwoong’s limbs. He speaks softly, comforting nonsense, his breath stirring Hwanwoong’s hair.

Slowly, too slowly, the tension in his chest starts to unwind and he feels like he can take a full breath again. It’s familiar, the world in Dongju’s collarbone, the way his skin smells, his warmth, and Hwanwoong tugs him closer, not wanting to lose that. Dongju resists for only a moment and then gives in all at once, letting himself be pulled onto the bed, under the covers, where Hwanwoong can finally close his eyes again, lulled back into more peaceful dreams.

Hwanwoong wakes up alone. He feels well-rested for the first time in a long time. The sheets are tucked tighter around his torso, where his shirt usually rides up in the night. He remembers waking up in the middle of the night with crystal clarity, Dongju’s arms around him, his hand in his hair, his voice soft in his ears. Hwanwoong feels his cheeks warm, buries his face in his pillow. It smells like Dongju’s conditioner.

He doesn’t know what to do with that. And a minute later his manager comes barging into his room, yelling that he was supposed to be in makeup five minutes ago and there’s no time to think about it anymore.

  
  


*

  
  


Seoho joins them in Dallas and it’s like breathing out after holding your breath for a while. Tension unwinds from Youngjo’s shoulders and Keonhee starts singing more than just his warm-up scales backstage. Dongju becomes brattier and sweeter all at once. Geonhak laughs louder, joy softening the edges of his pretend frown as he chases Seoho through the hallways of the venue.

Hwanwoong knows he’s being clingy but Seoho lets him. Seoho allows him to put his head on his shoulder when they sit down, lets Hwanwoong hold his hand for more than a minute at a time, and doesn’t even complain that he feels squished when Hwanwoong squeezes in next to him on the waiting room couch. He seems to know that Hwanwoong needs it, to reaffirm his presence after time apart. It’s the longest the two of them have been separated since Mixnine and Hwanwoong hated every minute of it then too.

The thing is, Seoho knows him down to his bones, knows Hwanwoong’s fears and feelings spilled in sweat and scraped knees across practice room floors. He knows Hwanwoong. He knows that his absence isn’t the only thing that’s been bothering him.

“So?” Seoho says, sprawling across one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. The rest of them are getting their makeup done and their manager is out getting food, so it’s just the two of them for the first time in a while. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Hwanwoong says, so unconvincingly that it has Seoho’s eyebrows shooting up. “I just missed you, that’s all.”

Seoho snorts. “Yeah, that one might work on Youngjo hyung but not on me. You’re deflecting. What’s going on?” he asks, and it’s the note of concern hidden underneath the jovial tone that has Hwanwoong biting his lip, his resolve starting to unravel.

‘Dongju is a demon,’ is at the tip of his tongue, but what comes out instead is something else.

“I told Dongju I like boys,” Hwanwoong says, then frowns at himself. It hadn’t been what he intended to say. Not even close.

“And?” Seoho says, because of course, he knows, he’s known for years, without Hwanwoong having to tell him. “Did you kiss? Is this why Keonhee says you’ve been weird?”

“Kiss him?” Hwanwoong asks, stunned. “What the fuck? What did Keonhee say?”

“Oh, shit,” Seoho suddenly sits up straight. “You really didn’t? I thought for sure you...did he react badly? Do I have to talk to him about it?”

“No, he didn’t react badly,” Hwanwoong says slowly, still trying to process it. “He didn’t react at all.”

He didn’t, which was strange now that Hwanwoong was thinking about it. In the face of other revelations, his little confession had just kind of fallen by the wayside.

“Oh, good,” Seoho says, relaxing in his seat. “I didn’t think he would, since he probably feels the same way about you, but you can never really tell with Dongju. He can be hard to read.”

“Yeah,” Hwanwoong says automatically before the rest of the sentence catches up with him. “Wait, what? He feels the same way about me? Feels what?”

Seoho looks at him like he thinks he’s stupid. “Do you really not know?” he asks.

“Know what?” Hwanwoong asks, befuddled and frustrated in equal measure.

“You have a crush on Dongju,” Seoho says, matter-of-factly.

“No, I don’t,” Hwanwoong says immediately. “That’s ridiculous, Dongju is…”

He trails off. Dongju is frustrating and bratty, and hard to read. He’s also kind, and sweet and caring, and so unbearably talented that it hurts in Hwanwoong’s chest. Dongju takes care of him, and he smells nice, and even if he’s a little boney, he’s nice for napping. He’s also unfairly pretty, with big brown eyes and soft hair, and a full mouth that looks lovely stretched out in a smile. Dongju, who is a demon.

“Oh, shit,” Hwanwoong says, hit with the full force of the realization. “I like Dongju.”

“You sure do, buddy,” Seoho says, grinning, but he reaches out to rub Hwanwoong’s back when he hunches over to put his head into his hands. “Did you just realize?”

“Yeah,” Hwanwoong says, miserably. “What do I do now?”

“Well,” Seoho starts thoughtfully, taking his hand away, having evidently decided they were over the comforting part of the conversation, “first you’re going to put on a dress.”

“Hyung-” Hwanwoong starts, exasperated. 

“And then you’re going to breakdance!” Seoho announces like he’s imparting some great wisdom. Hwanwoong sighs.

“Seoho hyung that would never work,” he says.

“Of course it will!” Seoho announces jovially. “It’s how I got my first boyfriend in middle school.”

“I’m not in middle school,” Hwanwoong says sullenly. Seoho squints at him, smile widening.

“Well, you’re about as tall as I was in middle school,” he says, and then he can’t say anything anymore because Hwanwoong is launching himself across the room to choke him.

  
  


*

  
  


Hwanwoong doesn’t know what to do with his newfound feelings so he just doesn’t do anything. He’s wrestling with the demon thing anyway. Torn between imagining what it might be like to kiss Dongju and the image of his eyes turning black, Hwanwoong is better off focusing on work. And there’s plenty of that, between their tour and preparations for a comeback already in motion. Seoho keeps giving him meaningful looks and jerking his head in Dongju’s direction but Hwanwoong doesn’t have any intention of following his shitty love advice.

He watches Dongju more though, catches himself doing it. Or maybe he watches him the same amount as before, he just knows what it means now, cataloging the little details.

Dongju always insists on finishing the whole burger even though the portions are massive in America and he complains about being bloated for hours afterward. He practices choreography when he thinks no one is looking, his frown etching deep lines into his face. Dongju lets Keonhee dote on him when Keonhee is feeling off. He steps in when Geonhak gets too caught up in his head for even Seoho to break him out if it, coaxing and bratty in turn, in a way that Geonhak wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else but that brings a smile to his face. Dongju laughs too loudly at stupid jokes he tells and can’t get through them. Dongju never touches Hwanwoong anymore until Hwanwoong touches him first.

All things that make Dongju feel univocally human. And yet. There are moments where they’re walking together and they pass by a mirror, or a window, and Hwanwoong will catch something in the edge of his vision. Angles that don’t look quite right, shadows where there shouldn’t be, things that disappear as soon as he turns his head to look at them directly.

And then one day, he walks into a room and Dongju is peeling an apple. Without a knife.

“I didn’t know you liked apples,” Hwanwoong blurts out, then. “Wait, are those claws?”

“I don’t like them,” Dongju says, and there’s a weird echo in his voice, buzzing at the edge of Hwanwoong’s hearing. His fingers look strange like shadows had slithered up his hands, forming into pointed tips which he’s using to elegantly peel the skin off the apple. “It’s a throwback. A nod to the original, if you will.”

Hwanwoong, again, doesn’t know what to do with that. “Are those claws?” he repeats.

Dongju shrugs and extends his hand so Hwanwoong can see them. It’s not just the pointed fingertips, his whole hand is an inky black, the color disappearing under his sleeve. The texture of it looks strange too, not uniform like skin, more like smoke trapped in a shape, unsettling in its constant movement.

Hwanwoong wants to touch it, just to see how it feels. “What would you have done if someone else came in here?” he asks instead.

Dongju smirks. Hwanwoong blinks, and there’s a knife in his hand, peeling the apple rather more clumsily. 

“You’ll cut your finger off like that,” Hwanwoong says weakly and Dongju snorts. He’s finished peeling the apple, and where Hwanwoong expects him to cut it in half to eat, he doesn’t. He just sort of unhinges his jaw in a profoundly unsettling motion and swallows the apple whole, core and all. Hwanwoong sees the barest glimpse of too sharp teeth, too many teeth, and then Dongju is reaching for another apple.

“Why are you showing me this now?” Hwanwoong asks, feeling a little faint. The buzzing in his ears has increased, and Dongju’s voice comes to him muffled.    
  


“I thought you were curious,” Dongju says calmly, peeling another apple. The peel comes off neatly in a spiral, coiling like a snake.

“Yeah,” Hwanwoong says, and sits down on a chair because his legs aren’t really holding him up anymore. “I wasn’t aware that questions were on the table.”

“I figured you needed a little space,” Dongju says, and his face softens slightly, “you can ask whatever you want.”

Hwanwoong takes a deep breath. The buzzing in his ears quiets and his heartbeat seems to settle a little, like easing off the edge of a cliff. He tries to remember all the things that kept him awake on sleepless nights. There’s so many, they seem to blur in his mind, dizzying. He opens his mouth.

“Can you fall in love?” is what comes out and Hwanwoong bites his lip. Couldn’t he have gone with something easier, like the meaning of life? 

For the first time since this started, Dongju looks thrown, pausing in his peeling to look at Hwanwoong with wide eyes. “...out of everything you could have asked, you choose that first?”

“Can you?” Hwanwoong repeats himself because now that he’s asked it, there’s no way of taking it back. And he really does want to know the answer.

“I can do anything I want,” Dongju says, and something about his tone is careful. Hwanwoong frowns.

“Love is not about wanting to though,” he points out. Dongju starts peeling another apple. He hasn’t seen him eat the last one.

“I do things I don’t want to do all the time too,” Dongju says after a moment of quiet.

“That’s not it,” Hwanwoong shakes his head, frustrated. “You don’t just decide to fall in love. It just happens. That’s why it’s falling in love, not, I don’t know, choosing in love.”

“Oh,” is all Dongju says. His face is unreadable and Hwanwoong gets the feeling that he’s deliberately avoiding answering, which makes him even more frustrated.

“So can you?” Hwanwoong repeats determined to get at least some semblance of an answer. “Love someone?”

Dongju shrugs. “Probably,” he says.

“You’ve never tried?” Hwanwoong asks. Something about the possibility of Dongju loving someone else makes him feel strange. A little jealous.

“Didn’t think it was that important,” Dongju says flatly, and Hwanwoong sighs in defeat.

“Then, has Dongmyeong ever fallen in love?” he asks, and he swears he can see something sharpen in Dongju’s eyes.

“Dongmyeong falls in love every day,” Dongju says, and it’s a non-answer if Hwanwoong ever heard one. He changes tracks.

“Are you and Dongmyeong always together?” he asks. His gaze draws to the apple in Dongju’s hand, finds it weirdly orange for a moment before it settles into a more familiar red. Must have been a trick of the light.

“No, but it’s a lot more fun if we are,” Dongju says, and his smirk softens into something like a real smile. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“How old are you?” Hwanwoong asks, with some trepidation. He’s not sure he’s going to like the answer.

“In this body? I’m twenty,” Dongju says, calmly. “In general? Quite a bit older than that.”

Hwanwoong swallows dryly. He feels like all he’s gotten are more questions rather than answers. His gaze gets drawn back to Dongju’s hands, where the apple is definitely orange this time. “Is that a tangerine?” he asks.

Dongju looks down and swears. The tangerine turns back into an apple. “I wasn’t paying attention,” he mumbles.

“Are you transforming the tangerines into apples?” Hwanwoong asks incredulously. “Why?”

“Apples taste yucky,” Dongju explains matter-of-factly, “but tangerines are delicious. This way I get the taste of a tangerine and the look of an apple. For the aesthetic.”

“For the aesthetic,” Hwanwoong repeats, dumbfounded.

“You want one?” Dongju asks and Hwanwoong can only nod. A moment later, there’s a peeled apple on the table in front of him. Hwanwoong hadn’t blinked, and so he'd seen the way the shadows in Dongju’s sleeve had rippled and reformed, bearing the fruit across the surface of the table in a black river, depositing it innocently in front of Hwanwoong.

He reaches out and takes a bite, feeling weirdly like he’s the character in a biblical story. Maybe a cautionary tale. There’s a weird disconnect between the texture of the apple and the bloom of the tangerine taste on his tongue but the end result isn’t bad.

“It’s good,” he tells Dongju, who smiles. They eat their fake apples for a while in silence, before Dongju breaks it.

“Hey, hyung?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically cautious. “Now that you know that I’m so much older than you, can I drop the hyung?”

“Absolutely not,” Hwanwoong says.

  
  


*

  
  


After that, it’s like the floodgates have opened - now that he has permission, Hwanwoong can’t keep his questions to himself anymore.

“Could you make us go number one?” he whispers into Dongju’s ear as they get in position on stage, nerves lighting up with fear and anticipation as the noises from the teeming crowd come through even through his in-ears. “On the charts? Could you make us win it all?”

Dongju looks at him, his eyes encased in heavy stage makeup, and Hwanwoong can barely see his expression in the darkness just before the floodgates open. “I could,” he says, and Hwanwoong could swear there’s a smile on his face, “if the producers gave me more lines in our songs.”

Hwanwoong is still laughing when the stage lights turn on and the fans grow louder.

  
  


*

  
  


They all get drinks at the end of the tour, their managers looking the other way as they toast their own beers for successfully hauling their chaotic asses around an unfamiliar country. Dongju isn’t technically allowed to drink in the US, but Youngjo sneaks him sips from his own glass and they all giggle a little nervously despite the fact that they’d all gotten drunk on cheap beer and soju back in Seoul. 

Hwanwoong feels loose and pliant as he and Dongju stumble to their own hotel room in the middle of the night, shushing Dongju’s giggles as he struggles with the keycard. Time feels like it trickles past him thick and syrupy, as he holds on to Dongju’s hand while he tries to balance on his feet enough to drop his pants. He falls into bed, reaching blindly for his phone charger, knowing that the alarm is set to too-soon and not particularly caring.

Dongju makes a tutting sound behind him. “How did you remove your jeans but not your sneakers?” he asks, and Hwanwoong turns around when he tugs on his ankle. Like this, sweaty and disheveled, Dongju looks just like any 20-year-old, if an unusually beautiful one. He’s got dark circles under his eyes and his hair is a mess from running his hands through it, and he could be a college student after a night out with his friends, not a rookie idol one year into his career.

The way all pretense of drunkenness drops from his limbs as he starts working on Hwanwoong’s shoelaces reminds Hwanwoong that he’s so much more than that.

“Does alcohol affect you at all?” Hwanwoong asks curiously and Dongju smiles, a quick upturn of lips as he chucks Hwanwoong’s undoubtedly disgusting socks across the room where he’ll forget to pick them up the next morning.

“It affects me as much as I let it,” he says, dropping his phone next to Hwanwoong’s on the bedside table. Hwanwoong watches him shrug off his jacket, the oversized shirt below slipping down to reveal his collarbone, his shoulder. 

“You say that about everything,” Hwanwoong says, and he reaches out to grab at Dongju’s wrist, tugging once. Dongju looks at him curiously, tilting his head to the side in a way that’d be adorable if it didn’t usually precede some sort of mischief. Hwanwoong tugs once more before letting go, scooting his heavy limbs backwards to make room on the bed.

He doesn’t have to say anything else. Dongju unbuckles his pants and lets them drop to the floor, and joins Hwanwoong under the covers before Hwanwoong’s eyes can linger on anything else in the lamplight. 

“Is it really so easy? To deny yourself anything?” Hwanwoong asks, sighing involuntarily as Dongju’s warmth nestles close. He smells like sweat and alcohol but Hwanwoong doesn’t mind. He probably doesn’t smell like roses either.

“Not as easy as you’d think,” Dongju mutters, quiet enough that Hwanwoong questions if he’s even heard him correctly. “I don’t deny myself burgers, or chocolate cake.”

“That doesn’t count,” Hwanwoong says, whining, hitting Dongju’s arm with his palm and then leaving it there. “You don’t gain weight anyway.”

Dongju huffs out a laugh and Hwanwoong nestles closer to his shoulder. He feels good, loose and sleepy and warm. He can feel Dongju’s exhales stir the hair on his forehead.

Hwanwoong doesn’t think of himself as a very religious person. In the course of his life, he can count on one hand how many times he’s thought of spiritual things and at least one of those was when Seoho choked him too hard and cut off his air supply. So he doesn’t know what makes him ask.

“Hey, Dongju? Who got it right?” he whispers.

“Got what right?” Dongju whispers back. His breath smells a little stale. If Hwanwoong opens his eyes, he’ll be caught staring at his mouth so he keeps them closed.

“About heaven and hell, and all of that,” Hwanwoong says, aware that his consciousness is slowly slipping away. “About what happens after we die.”

“Oh, that,” Dongju says, and he sounds casual like Hwanwoong asked him about his coffee order or their schedule for tomorrow. “No one, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not something I can really explain,” Dongju says, and his fingers slip into Hwanwoong’s hair. “No one got it right, or everyone did. Depends on how you look at it.”

“Is hell a bad place? You’ve been there, haven’t you?” Hwanwoong asks, insistent and Dongju huffs out a soft laugh.

“Depends on how you look at it,” he repeats.

“You’re not making any sense,” Hwanwoong mutters, but he’s not really mad. Dongju’s fingers brush through his hair, tugging gently on the knots. It feels so good, he maybe moans a little.

“You’re not making any sense either,” Dongju says, and he sounds fond. “Asking me things like this out of the blue.”

Dongju’s hands resume their soft path through his hair, and Hwanwoong is so comfortable his bones feel like they’re going to melt into the unfamiliar mattress. He thinks, with an amount of sap that will have him embarrassed in the morning, that if this is what the hell Dongju’s from is like, it doesn’t seem like such a bad place after all.

  
  


*

  
  


They meet up with Onewe a few days after they return from their tour, camp out in the dorms with bags of takeout and a lot of drinks that Yonghoon insists on paying for. 

From the corner of his eye, Hwanwoong observes the twins reuniting. They hug, quickly but tightly, and then devolve into bickering over who didn’t call enough and who was too sappy in their last vlive. Now that he knows where to look, he can see the little discrepancies in Dongmyeong’s appearance, the way the edges of his body blur strangely when he moves sometimes, the way he seems to collect all the light in the room, the polar opposite of Dongju’s shadows.

He gets caught staring, and the smirk that pulls on Dongmyeong’s face is knowing enough that it’s got Hwanwoong flushing and looking away. Dongmyeong has always had something of that effect on him, but it’s a detail Hwanwoong lost in his compartmentalizing. He resolves to avoid him as much as possible.

It’s easy enough at first, Dongmyeong preoccupied with fussing over his erstwhile twin and then with teasing Keonhee. Hwanwoong starts relaxing in the familiar surroundings, leans into Yonghoon’s casual arm on his shoulders, jokes around with Harin, eats and drinks enough so he feels mellow, but not drunk.

It’s not until he comes out of the bathroom to find Dongmyeong waiting for him in the hallway that he realizes it was a mistake to let his guard down. The hallway is dark except for the small square of doorway leading into the living room, and Dongmyeong is blocking his way.

Even in the darkness, Dongmyeong seems to collect the light, the rays of distant lamplight concentrating on him in particular, throwing his features into stark unearthly contrast, light following in afterimages as he moves. Hwanwoong finds himself swallowing around a tongue that feels too big and heavy in his mouth, clinging to the opposite wall to keep upright. Dongmyeong’s light feels cutting, deliberately too stark and bright, and it hurts his eyes.

“Hello, hyung,” Dongmyeong purrs and the predatory edge to his expression has Hwanwoong’s heart beating faster and not in a good way. “Dongju told me you two had a little talk on your tour.”

“I...I won’t tell anyone,” Hwanwoong stutters. He’s only ever felt fond and softly indulgent around Dongmyeong, sometimes awed, but it’s got nothing on the near paralyzing fear coursing through his limbs now, as Dongmyeong peels himself off the wall and walks closer. The edges of his silhouette blur and flicker off, like sparks from a fire.

Dongmyeong laughs, a little mocking. “Of course you won’t,” he says. “What would you be telling, hm? What did Dongju tell you we were?”

Tongue stuck in his throat, Hwanwoong feels compelled to say it anyway. “That you’re...you’re…” he trails off and the look Dongmyeong gives him is pitying.

“You won’t tell anyone because you can’t,” Dongmyeong says, “hasn’t Dongju told you this much?”

Struck dumb, Hwanwoong can only shake his head. “You don’t know anything and you can’t tell anyone,” Dongmyeong says, mocking in his voice. “Tell me, has Dongju shown you his true face? What he looks like without all these earthly trappings?”

He waves his hands at himself with an expression of abject disgust, his sparkly painted nails pointing at his tight pink jumper, at the jeans that Hwanwoong encouraged him to buy. His expression softens when he sees Hwanwoong shake his head.

“Let me show you,” he says, and Hwanwoong knows the moment his body begins to dissolve into smoke that it’s a terrible idea. His eyes burn and his body shakes in fear as he watches Dongmyeong’s body contort in terrible inhuman ways, becoming something bigger, towering impossibly above him in the tiny hallway.

Their friends are in the living room just a few steps away but Hwanwoong hears nothing except the unbearable buzzing in his ears. He swallows, tastes blood and ozone on the back of his throat. Dongmyeong’s figure is unrecognizable now, a writhing mass of a dozen legs and arms, so terrible and inhuman that Hwanwoong wants to look away but finds that he can’t. He grows unbearably brighter and Hwanwoong’s eyes hurt, liquid like tears spilling down his cheeks. He wants to close his eyes but he can’t, his eyelids kept open by some unstoppable force.

“Do you see now?” Dongmyeong’s voice seems to come from inside Hwanwoong’s brain and it feels invasive like someone is rifling through his mind. “Do you see what we really are?”

A single part of the monstrous figure breaks off and forms into Dongmyeong’s upper body as he comes closer. He looks almost sympathetic, and Hwanwoong would wonder what expression must be on his face if he were capable of thinking at all. 

“Wouldn’t it be best if you didn’t know anything at all?” Dongmyeong’s voice, seductive and coaxing, presses down on his brain and he comes closer, brightly glowing hand nearing Hwanwoong’s cheek. “Wouldn’t it be better to forget?”

With all the strength he has left, Hwanwoong shakes his head. He doesn’t know why, but the thought of not remembering fills him with more than the base fear that Dongmyeong’s figure inspires. He’s terrified of forgetting, of not knowing. He tries pressing further against the wall, but there’s nowhere to go, no way he can avoid Dongmyeong’s figure, relentlessly closing in, bright and terrible.

There’s a pop, like a cork flying from a bottle, and Dongmyeong’s figure is thrown backward, shredded under the onslaught of darkness. A dark film falls over Hwanwoong’s eyes, shielding him from the glare of the miniature sun that is Dongmyeong’s body. The pressure recedes. He looks up and finds that he’s surrounded by a mass of shadows that’s relentlessly driving away Dongmyeong’s searing light.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Dongju’s voice seems to come from everywhere at once, and it’s overwhelming, especially once Hwanwoong realizes that the massive monstrous figure above him is Dongju. He’s in the literal belly of the beast.

Hwanwoong doesn’t hear Dongmyeong’s reply but Dongju’s voice in response comes clear as a bell. 

_ “I can take care of myself!”  _

The two masses collide in a blinding supernova, and Hwanwoong can finally close his eyes.

When he opens them, the hallway is dark and quiet, except for the distant sounds of voices from the living room. Dongju is standing in front of him, a worried expression on his face, his hands grasping Hwanwoong’s elbows, holding him up. Dongmyeong is nowhere to be seen.

“What…” Hwanwoong croaks out around a throat that feels scraped raw, “what was that?”

His legs finally give up on him and he goes sliding to the floor. Dongju kneels in front of him, makes a soothing noise under his breath, and produces a handkerchief from somewhere, cleaning away the tears from Hwanwoong’s cheeks. Hwanwoong hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“That was my brother being overprotective,” Dongju sighs, looking grim, “I’m sorry. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He pulls Hwanwoong up and into the bathroom with unusual strength. Hwanwoong closes his eyes against the spots still dancing in his vision and follows blindly.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s close to the morning by the time Onewe leave. Hwanwoong’s reddened eyes get him some concerned looks but the way Dongju hovers over his shoulder, glaring, dissuades anyone from commenting. Dongmyeong keeps his distance. He looks tired, diminished somehow by whatever Dongju has done to him. Harin puts his arm around him, concern written all over his face, and Dongmyeong whines about being babied, but doesn't try to move away.

Hwanwoong avoids looking at him. The memories of the hallway are already fading, losing some of the horrifying details, and he’s pretty sure that’s his own brain trying to protect him from the trauma and not anyone’s tampering. Dongmyeong’s voice still echoes in his brain.

Does Hwanwoong really know what he’s getting into?

Dongju leaves his side at some point, to climb all over a giggling Geonhak and reluctantly submit to a drunk Youngjo’s forehead kisses, only to briefly snuggle into Seoho’s side before getting into a play fight with Keonhee over the chips. He returns to his virgil by Hwanwoong’s side, insisting on feeding him the poached chips, even if Hwanwoong doesn’t feel particularly hungry.

He makes no move to say goodbye to Dongmyeong until Hwanwoong prods at his side.

“I’m still mad at him,” Dongju hisses when Hwanwoong jerks his head meaningfully in Dongmyeong’s direction. “He had no right doing that to you.”

“He didn’t,” Hwanwoong says, and folds his hands in his sleeves to disguise how they shake. “But he was just trying to look out for you, right? You’re going to be upset if you don’t say goodbye to him.”

Dongju grumbles under his breath but detaches from Hwanwoong’s side. He bends his head close to Dongmyeong’s, and they exchange a couple of furious words that Hwanwoong can’t make out. Dongmyeong perks up after it though, the smile on his face turning teasing rather than perfunctory. 

Dongju stomps his way over to Hwanwoong’s side and over his shoulder, Dongmyeong offers Hwanwoong a wink. Hwanwoong smiles back, as sincerely as he can with phantom spots still dancing behind his eyelids. It makes Dongmyeong’s smile widen and if Hwanwoong didn’t know any better, he’d think there’s a hint of relief in it. 

  
  


*

  
  


By the time he and Dongju stumble into their shared room, it’s close to dawn. Keonhee has fallen asleep in the living room, head on Youngjo’s lap, and Youngjo has refused to allow them to wake him up, so now they’re alone and Youngjo is going to have a crick in his neck tomorrow.

The alcohol has mostly left his system and all Hwanwoong feels now is a mellow sort of tiredness, comforted by the thought of the upcoming day free of schedules. He faceplants into the first bed he sees, breathing a exhale into the sheets.

“Yah, get out of my bed,” Dongju says, coming up behind him, but he doesn’t actually sound upset so Hwanwoong stretches out and doesn’t otherwise move. 

“Is that any way to talk to your hyung?” he says, without any intention, just to keep talking. Dongju snorts.

“I’ll talk to hyung nicely once he stops messing up my bed,” he says, and Hwanwoong can hear the rustle of cloth behind him, probably Dongju removing his sweater. It makes his face burn a little, so he keeps it stuck in the sheets, crawling up the bed a little to press it into the pillow. It smells like Dongju here, sweat and citrus, and the barest hint of smoke underneath that Hwanwoong knows no one else would be able to detect.

“Remember when I used to fall asleep on your bed all the time?” Hwanwoong asks as Dongju hits the bed next to him with a small ‘oof’ pulling the covers over both of them.

“I remember,” Dongju says, “the bunk was even smaller than this.”

Hwanwoong takes a chance and cuddles closer. Dongju doesn’t move away, just watches him as the room begins to lighten with the approaching dawn. The half-dark and the quietness of the hour reminds him of another room, another bed, another confession. Maybe it’s time for another one.

“I thought about kissing you then,” Hwanwoong says, and Dongju doesn’t look surprised. He brushes his thumb against the small strip of skin revealed by Hwanwoong’s T-shirt and Hwanwoong shivers. It makes Dongju smile.

“Why didn’t you?” Dongju asks, and his palm brushes up past Hwanwoong’s side to cup his cheek. “Kiss me?”

“I thought you were out of my league,” Hwanwoong huffs out. He braces on hand on Dongju’s chest, marveling for the umpteenth time how warm he is.

“I’m definitely out of your league,” Dongju says, and then he closes the distance between them to press a brief kiss to Hwanwoong’s lips. “Good thing I like you anyway.”

Hwanwoong lets out a laugh, half frustration, and half elation, and chases his mouth to kiss him properly. “Do you?” he asks, between kissing the corner of Dongju’s mouth and taking his bottom lip between his teeth. “Like me? Can you like me?”

“Not this conversation again,” Dongju huffs against his lips. “Why do you assume I’m not capable of loving you?”

“It’s not that,” Hwanwoong says, and thinks about the shadows surrounding him a few hours ago. He’d been devoured, but never trapped. He’d felt taken, protected. The issue was something else. “You’ve forgotten more people than I’ll ever meet.”

Dongju laughs slightly, incredulously. He kisses Hwanwoong again, deep enough that it has his toes curling. “Is that what you’re worried about?” he asks.

Hwanwoong pouts slightly. Like this, surrounded by Dongju’s body in the pre-dawn light, his worries seem so far away. “Will you remember me?” he asks insistently against Dongju’s mouth.

“I think you make yourself impossible to forget,” Dongju says softly. He slides his mouth down Hwanwoong’s cheek, like the path of a tear. 

Hwanwoong reaches up to cup his cheeks in his hands, pulls Dongju back slightly so they’re looking at each other. The darkness of Dongju’s pupils has bleed across his eyes, turning them entirely black, dark like a starless night. Instead of feeling afraid, Hwanwoong feels comforted. Special.

“Remember me forever, okay?” Hwanwoong says, and then Dongju’s kissing him again, and then neither of them says anything else for a good long while.

Outside, the perpetually starless night lightens its way into dawn, as the city awakens to its daily commute.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly this story was quite outside my comfort zone but I'm glad I ended up writing it. If you liked it, and if there's anything specifically you liked, please let me know in a comment.


End file.
